- The Wild crease will be crowded next season with veteran Marc-André Fleury back for his final NHL season and rookie Jesper Wallstedt primed for more major-league time. That’s left many wondering where this leaves 25-year-old Filip Gustavsson, whose numbers were mediocre this season after finishing seventh in year-end positional All-Star voting in 2023. Speaking to The Athletic’s Joe Smith, GM Bill Guerin confirmed that Wallstedt “needs to get more than he got this year,” and they don’t yet have a plan in place for how they want to operate between the pipes. Carrying three goalies on the active roster isn’t an active proposition for a team with $14.7MM in dead cap space from the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts next season, so if the organization decides Wallstedt is ready for a full-time tandem role with Fleury instead of just increased call-up opportunities, Gustavsson could find himself on the trade market. He has a $3.75MM cap hit through 2025-26, an attractive number for a netminder who’s still cumulatively saved 26.3 goals above average in 84 games with the Wild since 2022.
Wild Rumors
Danila Yurov To Sign One-Year Extension In KHL
- Top Minnesota Wild prospect Danila Yurov is reportedly set to sign a one-year extension in the KHL as soon as tomorrow, per Michael Russo of The Athletic (Twitter link). This news comes after Yurov completed his championship run with Magnitogorsk Metallurg. He led the team in regular season scoring, with 21 goals and 49 points in 62 games, and added nine points in 23 playoff games. Minnesota drafted Yurov as the 24th overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, and they will now have to wait one more year to bring him to North America.
Wild Likely To Re-Sign Declan Chisholm
The Wild picked up one of the more interesting young players who hit waivers this season – defenseman Declan Chisholm. A Jets 2018 fifth-round pick who played just two games for Winnipeg in the first few months of the season, Chisholm immediately became an everyday player in Minnesota, posting three goals and eight points in 29 games while averaging 16:52 per game, 1:53 of which came on the power play.
All indications point to Chisholm earning the first one-way contract of his career, and he should slot in as a cheap, puck-moving option near the bottom of the lineup for the cap-strapped Wild. Minnesota owes him a qualifying offer of $813,750, a cap hit he’s likely to eclipse when all is said and done.
Danila Yurov To Sign One-Year KHL Extension
Wild prospect Danila Yurov won’t be making the jump to North America next season after all, at least at the start. Championnat’s Pavel Novikov reports that the 20-year-old has inked a one-year extension with Magnitogorsk Metallurg of the KHL, keeping him signed through next season. Yurov was the 24th overall selection back in 2022 and had a particularly impressive showing this year, notching 21 goals and 28 assists in 62 games, good for the team lead in scoring while finishing 17th in points league-wide. Countryman Marat Khusnutdinov went to the NHL after his KHL campaign ended back in February and since Minnesota hasn’t signed Yurov to an entry-level deal yet, it’s possible that he follows that path next season.
11 Teams Face Cap Overage Penalties Next Season
With the salary cap largely being flat the last few years, more teams have had to dip into LTIR when injuries have come up. Accordingly, the number of teams facing bonus overage penalties has also risen. This year is no exception as Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports in collaboration with CapFriendly that 11 teams are currently facing cap overage penalties for 2024-25 as a result of bonuses achieved this season.
When a team finishes up the season using LTIR to stay cap-compliant, they don’t have any regular cap space to which bonuses can be applied against. Accordingly, that results in LTIR teams that have incentives that are met finishing over the cap, yielding overage penalties. Whatever amount they finished 2023-24 over by is then deducted off the Upper Limit for next season.
The teams that are confirmed to have bonus overage penalties are as follows:
Edmonton Oilers: $3.45MM*
Dallas Stars: $2,595,407
Washington Capitals: $2.2525MM
Los Angeles Kings: $1.85MM
New Jersey Devils: $1,538,897
Montreal Canadiens: $1.0225MM
Ottawa Senators: $850K
New York Rangers: $512.5K*
Minnesota Wild: $425K*
Philadelphia Flyers: $245K
Boston Bruins $50K*
Teams denoted with an asterisk could see their bonus overage increase if the following happens:
Edmonton: Corey Perry’s contract calls for $50K if the Oilers make the Western Conference Final and another $50K if they reach the Stanley Cup Final.
New York: Theirs would increase by $25K if they win the Stanley Cup, a bonus in Jonathan Quick’s deal.
Minnesota: Marco Rossi can make $212.5K if he makes the All-Rookie Team which would then be added to the Wild’s carryover penalty.
Boston: Milan Lucic will receive $200K if the Bruins win the Stanley Cup as part of his contract.
In addition to the above, Carolina and Florida also have the potential for an overage contingent on the playoffs. The Hurricanes would have a $50.45K penalty if Jackson Blake plays in 20 games between the regular season and playoffs. Meanwhile, the Panthers would take a $500K hit if they win the Stanley Cup to cover that bonus in Kyle Okposo’s contract.
Team-by-team details with specifics on how each one got to the point of an overage were covered separately by PuckPedia.
It’s the first time that multiple teams will carry overage penalties of more than $2MM into the following season. With the cap expected to go up by closer to $4MM this summer, that could in theory take some pressure off from the bonus overage perspective but only if teams leave themselves a bit more wiggle room to work with. There’s a good chance that won’t happen so we’re quite likely to see these penalties again next season though with perhaps fewer teams getting the hit next time around.
Nate Benoit Transfers To Quinnipiac
- Wild blueline prospect Nate Benoit has also transferred to Quinnipiac, reports Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald. The 2021 sixth-round pick was limited to just 19 appearances at North Dakota this season, collecting a single assist which was not the freshman year he was certainly hoping for.
Wild Notes: Gustavsson, Faber, Injuries, Front Office
After a strong first season in Minnesota, Filip Gustavsson’s second year didn’t go anywhere near as planned. The 25-year-old saw his save percentage drop by 32 points from .931 to .899 while his GAA went up nearly a full goal from 2.10 to 3.06 in 43 appearances. With Marc-Andre Fleury signing on for a final season and GM Bill Guerin indicating he wants to give Jesper Wallstedt a longer NHL look, some have wondered if Gustavsson could be the odd one out. Despite the potential logjam, the netminder told reporters including Sarah McLellan and Rachel Blount of the Star Tribune that he wants to stay. Head coach John Hynes indicated that an improved fitness level will be key to a successful offseason for Gustavsson.
More from Minnesota from McLellan and Blount’s piece:
- Defenseman Brock Faber played the last two months with fractured ribs. The injury certainly didn’t seem to slow the 21-year-old who logged nearly 25 minutes a night in his rookie year while leading Minnesota’s blueliners with 47 points in 82 games, making him a Calder Trophy contender. The injury, however, will keep him out of the Worlds next month. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Guerin try to work out a long-term extension with Faber this summer, one that could push past the $8MM mark based on recent comparables including Ottawa’s Jake Sanderson.
- Speaking of injuries, defenseman Jared Spurgeon and winger Marcus Foligno are expected to be fully ready for training camp in September. Spurgeon was limited to just 16 games this season due to hip and back surgeries but resumed skating four weeks ago. When healthy, the 34-year-old logs big minutes for the Wild and he’ll certainly be a big boost to their back end in the fall. As for Foligno, he missed the final couple of weeks after undergoing core muscle surgery; he won’t be able to return to the ice until June.
- Guerin indicated that the team will likely announce changes to the front office. They didn’t appoint a replacement when assistant GM Chris O’Hearn left so at a minimum, a new assistant will need to be appointed. Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic suggest (subscription link) that Mat Sells, who works in analytics and helps with contract negotiations, is a candidate for a promotion to that role.
Team USA Names John Hynes Head Coach For World Championship
- Team USA general manager Bill Guerin has named John Hynes as the head coach for the World Championship (Twitter link). It’s Guerin’s second time recruiting Hynes this season, having also hired him into the head coaching role for the Minnesota Wild after the team fired Dean Evason. The duo will look to maintain their momentum with Team USA, after the Wild ranked as a top-15 team in record, goals-for, and goals-against under Hynes’ reign.
Wild Extend Marc-André Fleury
The Wild have signed netminder Marc-André Fleury to a one-year extension worth $2.5MM, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports. The contract contains a full no-move clause, per PuckPedia.
Fleury returns for his 21st NHL season, which he confirmed will be his last, as he attempts to widen the gap between him and Patrick Roy for second place on the NHL’s all-time wins list. The future Hall-of-Famer was the first overall pick by the Penguins in 2003. He immediately made the jump to the NHL – incredibly rare for a goalie – and was Pittsburgh’s undisputed starter by the time the league emerged from the 2004-05 lockout.
His time in Pittsburgh was incredibly fruitful, starting en route to their 2009 Stanley Cup win and working in tandem with Matt Murray for their 2016 and 2017 championships before heading to the Golden Knights in the 2017 expansion draft. There, he led Vegas to the 2018 Stanley Cup Final and captured his first and only Vezina Trophy in 2021. He was dealt to the Blackhawks for salary cap management purposes the following summer and later flipped to the Wild at the 2022 trade deadline, where he’s remained since.
The veteran was prone to a few stinker seasons once in a while, but he hasn’t truly performed at a high level since his Golden Knights days. That age-36 season in 2020-21 was truly remarkable. During the COVID-shortened season, he posted a career-high .928 SV% and 1.98 GAA with six shutouts in just 36 starts. He wasn’t bad by any stretch in the following two seasons with Chicago and Minnesota, posting a 52-39-9 record with a .908 SV% in 102 appearances in 2021-22 and 2022-23, but it was clear he was no longer cut out for a full-time starting role. Thus, he’s served in tandem with the younger Filip Gustavsson for the life of the two-year, $7MM extension he signed with Minnesota in 2022.
Fleury’s numbers were decidedly worse this season. Making only 35 starts, his fewest since 2016-17, the 39-year-old has a 17-14-5 record, 2.98 GAA, and .895 SV% entering the Wild’s final game of the season tomorrow, which he’s slated to start. He’s allowed 10.8 goals above expected this season, the worst among Wild netminders and sixth-worst in the league, per MoneyPuck. His save percentage is his worst ever, including his first couple of seasons behind a developing/rebuilding Pens team.
His extension indicates one of two possibilities for the Wild crease – either last year’s breakout star Filip Gustavsson is on the trade block after crashing down to Earth in 2023-24, or the organization doesn’t believe top goaltending prospect Jesper Wallstedt is quite ready for full-time NHL duties. Gustavsson, who has two years remaining on his deal at a $3.75MM cap hit, posted only marginally better numbers than Fleury this year, with a .899 SV% in 43 starts and two relief appearances. Wallstedt, 21, put up a .908 SV% in 43 contests behind a subpar AHL Iowa squad and ended his season on a high note, stopping 51 of 53 shots in wins this month against the Sharks and Blackhawks after conceding seven goals against the Stars in his NHL debut in January.
Awarding a declining Fleury $2.5MM after the netminder already made it clear Minnesota or retirement were his only two options next season is an arguably questionable decision by GM Bill Guerin. The club still has one season remaining of the most extreme effects of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts, which leave them with a $14.7MM dead cap charge. The Wild are now down to $5.2MM in projected cap space next season, per CapFriendly, although their roster is mostly filled out with only three open spots.
Still, a lower cap charge for Fleury would have given Guerin more flexibility to add on the free agent market this summer in an effort to get Minnesota back to the playoffs in 2025 after missing out this year. It’s much higher than last year’s comparable, all-time American wins leader Jonathan Quick coming off an inconsistent 2022-23 campaign, who earned just $825K with an additional $100K performance bonus on the open market from the Rangers.
Nonetheless, Fleury returns for his third full season with Minnesota. The Quebec native has accumulated an estimated $84.4MM in career earnings before today’s extension, per CapFriendly.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Minnesota Wild Reassign Adam Beckman, Jesper Wallstedt
Before their last game of this season this Saturday, the Minnesota Wild have chosen to send a few of the younger players on the roster, announcing the reassignment of both forward Adam Beckman and goaltender Jesper Wallstedt to the organization’s AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild. The news comes in congruence with earlier reporting that forward Frederick Gaudreau would be returning to the lineup after missing some time on personal leave.
After receiving a callup with the team on March 7th, Beckman has been a full-time member of the Wild for a little over a month. Playing in 11 games over that stretch, Beckman was not utilized very heavily in Minnesota, only tallying two assists while only averaging 9:24 of ice time per game. At the AHL level, Beckman was similarly productive to his past two years in Iowa, scoring 16 goals and 29 points over 48 games this season.
Being one of the league’s top goaltending prospects, Wallstedt received his third call-up of the year to Minnesota on April 6th. Unfortunately, he was only able to participate in one game, stopping 29 of 31 shots against the San Jose Sharks in the team’s victory on April 13th.
Neither player will have much to look forward to as they return to the AHL Wild, as Iowa sits with a 25-37-4-3 record in the AHL, sitting dead last in the Central Division. With both teams in the organization set to miss the postseason, Beckman and Wallstedt will have to wait until the 2024-25 season to play in any more meaningful games.